Take the difference between theatre and cinema: In the latter you may be seeing the best out of dozens of takes of the same line of dialog or some physically impossible feat but in the former you watch the performers immediately.

The experiences both for the audiences and the performers/creators probably vary considerably, but both present valid approaches to presenting works of dramatic art.

So if some people prefer unretouched (or even analog) photography that is their business.

"Fine Art Photography" is a tricky term, highly subjective, what's "Fine Art" to one judge may be commercial trash to another.

My own view of "Fine Art Photography" would exclude works that were obviously and heavily manipulated - I would have a serious problem with some of the more garish, "turn it up to 11," examples of HDR! - come to think of it, I'd probably have a problem with COLOR!!!

As I said, HIGHLY subjective.

If the site has a gallery of previous winners, take a look, that would probably give you an idea of what the judges consider acceptable.

I'm not a piece of sheet metal trying to fit in a wooden slot. I am an artist. I know that and I'm not willing to change to be accepted.I use Photoshop like modern sculptors use power tools, painters acrylic paint without lead, or musician electric guitars.

In art I'm looking for each final image to reflect to my own brain. I don't care about the "jurney there" or the brains of others.

When I enter a competition I'm testing the jury, not the other way around : )

All Photography competitions, Exhibitions and Salons have rules, and you either comply or you don't. The relevant rule in most contests that I can think of, is that at least 70% of the image should come from your camera, but you are usually allowed any amount of radical editing. Your entry looks like you stared with a screen grab of a highly zoomed image, and then used something like Topaz Adjust to create the noise and high saturation. The thing with extreme abstracts is they still need to be ascetically pleasing, and even follow the normal rules of composition.

I produced the following image for a competition where the theme was Abstract, and rather cynically followed the rule of thirds and general composition. I made it with judges in mind, and was actually taking the mick out of the system. The thing is, it turned out to be one of my most successful images, so you can't win.

BTW It is a composite of three frames that used a combination of camera movement, anf Photoshop to produce the strong perspective in the rows of grape vines.

Nearly all big Photographic Society competitions, Exhibitions and Salons nowadays seem to be looking more for art than straight photography. The PSNZ use this flickr group to show competition winners for instance. The same applies to Professional bodies as you can see with last years winner from the NZIPP Iris Awards There just might be a kick back though, as one of our biggest competitions, the North Shore Salon is focusing more on pure photography this year

That's very kind of you Noel. There are few things truly original when it comes to imagery, and all we can really do is try and stamp our own particular style on a picture. The image you linked to is pure camera movement I'm thinking, which reminds me of a local photographer artist who insists that her pictures are created entirely in-camera. Sally Mason is quite a big name in our part of the world, and on the PSNZ Honours Board (She gets a say in who becomes an LPSNZ, APSNZ or FPSNZ). She is also a regular speaker at Photographic Conventions, and is the keynote speaker at a coming convention in Australia.

The thing is, Sally must have an extremely low keeper rate, and her successes are more to do with 'happy accidents' than skill with a camera. She is a lovely person though, and while not exactly a buddy of mine, she is a close acquaintance.

Lots of people throwing their cameras into the air, or zooming while sprinting through corn fields etc. HERE, HERE and some actually quite nice ones HERE

[EDIT] I have just remembered that buddy Lynn Clayton won Champion image in the North Shore Salon a couple of years ago with this picture:

That's fine...and regardless of the outcome the one thing you really SHOULD do is read the submission guidlines and understand EXACLTY what your submission means...many contests have really, REALLY bad rights grabs that provide the contest with way too much usage or ownership of the submissions (let a lone the winners).

In the grand scheme of things, you prolly should be less concerned about that OTHERS people think of your work vs. what YOU think of your work. If you are honest with yourself, do you really care what others may think? (clue, you shouldn't)

BTW, it seems the webiste is designed to direct artists and buyers to a print on demand fulfillment and less about a normal agency/gallery relationship. I tried (just short of joining) to find a Terms and Conditions...the fact you can't find it is a red flag to me.

Take FineArtAmerica.com, an online marketplace and social networking site for painters, photographers and other visual artists. Artists can use to the site to connect with collectors and other buyers and, says founder Sean Broihier, put the business side of their career on "autopilot," leaving them more time to create art. FineArtAmerica.com (FAA) has more than 28,000 artists who upload new images to the site each day; 6,000 of them offer prints for sale.

FAA has been profitable since launch in 2007, thanks in part to its low overhead. Founder Broihier is its solo owner, and the company has no employees. Revenues were $175,000 in 2008 and $1 million in 2009, and the company projects revenues of $2.5 million for 2010. Broihier says that FineArtAmerica.com currently attracts 175,000 unique visitors a day, and traffic is growing by 10%-15% a month.

Broihier is a very good example of someone who has taken destiny in his own hands by embracing the Web rather than joining the 10% unemployment pool in America.

Wether I win or not is not important. I'm testing the jury—remember?I think that my work is much more than Trevor's description of what he thinks it is : ) It's not about skill, it's conceptual and therefore somewhat automatic and repeatable as a style.It is digital Pop Art, a bridge between representational and abstract, classical and modern, easy to recognize as my own style even though other artists worked with pixels:Chuck Close, Vik Muniz, Banksy, even Dali.Take a look at this page to see the context:http://pinterest.com/laurentiutodie/timely-art/

Do you know exactly how Warhol's silk screen prints were made? I know because I'm an old screen printer, but think that most buyers, art historians and curators don't know; it's not important.

Not being familiar with photo contests at all, this was my first exposure to one. Some thoughts that occurred to me:

Loads of exquisitely beautiful photos in the lineup - I wish I had the time to look at them all

If I (as a public viewer) am presented with 10 or twenty photos, sure I can vote on the ones I find most appealing. But when I am presented with page after page of thumbnails with no end in sight, I can't even get through them all, so I wouldn't vote at all, or I'd only end up voting for some images in the first two or three pages. However I realize that maybe the only voters will be registered members of the sight who will be willing to go through them all.

As has been mentioned in this thread before, art is so subjective, that the fact of winning is absolutely irrelevant to the quality of the photo or the artist. So why bother?

The winning photos of this contest will apparently be aired on a national TV commercial. Does this mean that the winning photos need to have the quality of appealing to a broad public audience rather than having qualities recognizable only by artists?

Going back to Trevor's story of a successful photographer whose best successes have to do with lucky accidents: I guess one could say it takes a talented artist to recognize the worth of these lucky accidents, but it must be bitter for artists who put a lot of creative effort in their work to see "lucky accidents" get all the laurels.

Regarding the amount of image editing: I doubt that some of the entries were ever photos at all to start with. Others are 99% manipulated. One good example is the twisted hand with eyeballs on each finger

The purpose of my posting here about the contest is twofold: — an attempt to identify my entries for others to vote on — to inform the forum members about the existence of this contest, so the interested can participate themselves in this one or others.

After-all, artists are trying to make the world a more beautiful place; the more the better : )

I am just beginning to explore FineArtAmerica, but by the always fine example of Jeff Schewe, others can reveal aspects of it that I didn't even think of looking for yet.

I think that the Photoshop users are closer to the artistic spirit of being than most others, though nowadays art is kidnah fusing with science on its own and soon we will see and admire artwork by physicists, chemists and mathematicians.

Coders admire the elegant simplicity or complexity of their code, typographers have wonderful metaphors about areas of page design that others are just taking for granted. I try to bring awareness to that which I find beautiful, in hope that others will follow suit with their own definitions and preocupation.

So, please vote for me or Trevor if you like our entries, and explore the eventuality of participating yourselves.